For the only years of his pro career, Rick averaged less than 20 points and his rebounding stats sagged, too. Still, he had plenty left in the tank. He set a personal high for assists in 1978-79 with 502, and captured two more free-throw titles, including an NBA record of 94.7 percent. Rick’s deal with Houston expired in the spring of 1980. NBA general managers saw what appeared to be his drastic dip in production, and no one offered him a contract.

Your points went way down and your assist went way up. How did that impact your career?

Everyone looked at my scoring numbers and said, “Rick Barry is old and can’t play anymore.” Are you kidding me? I filled in for Calvin Murphy at two guard one game and scored 37 or 38 points. But during my two years in Houston I was never an integral part of the offense—we ran everything through Moses at center, Rudy at power forward and Calvin at the two-guard spot—and it really hurt my career. I was a team player, I did what I was asked to do and it cost me a chance to continue to play in the NBA. I had a sore knee my second year that I had cleaned out after the season, but it wasn’t a significant injury. In fact, I felt better than I had in 10 years.

So why no contract for 1980-81?

The NBA cut rosters down to 11 the following season. The Celtics, Lakers and Sonics were interested in me, but they didn’t want to fill their 11th spot with a 36-year-old guy who supposedly couldn’t play anymore. The irony was that in the summer I ran a basketball camp and had Marques Johnson and Walter Davis come up. I had great success against those guys in scrimmages! And yet I never played again. They say everything happens for a reason. I accepted it and moved on in life, but the way I finished up my career was disappointing.

Did that drive you nuts?

I have the ability to bury stuff and not think about things. When people ask me if I miss playing, I say, “No,” then they look at me strangely. I explain that I don’t miss playing because I don’t think about it. If I’d thought about it, I would miss it terribly. Why would I want to think about something that is going to depress me?

Rick retired as one of the most enigmatic players in NBA history—not to mention one of the league's best ever. Bill Sharman once called him “the most productive offensive forward ever to play the game.” The statistics bear him out. Over 10 NBA seasons, Rick averaged 23.2 points, 6.5 rebounds and 5.1 assists, while shooting an even 90 percent from the charity stripe. In the high-flying ABA, only Connie Hawkins and Julius Erving matched his all-around production. In both leagues, Rick was even better during the playoffs, where his competitive drive kicked into a brand new gear. Elected to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1986, he was named to the NBA’s 50th Anniversary team a decade later.

When did you reconcile yourself to doing television commentary?

I had been doing games at CBS for years, so I already knew I was going into broadcasting. Once I realized I wasn’t going to play, I made the transition. Bob Wussler, for whom I had worked for at CBS, was at Turner, and gave me the opportunity to go there. That worked out nicely for me. I did games at Turner for a long time, but I was stupid for not asking Bob to extend my contract before he left. His replacement wasn’t a fan of mine. I figured I was doing the best work of my career at that point so everything would work out. But it didn’t.

A quick thinker and expert analyst during his playing days, Rick was a natural as a broadcaster. Network execs liked that he said what was on his mind. But his outspoken nature made him a target, too.

The relationship between sports stars and reporters is not exactly based on trust. They use the players, the players use them. What was your experience?

I used the media once. They screwed me many times. I don’t try to make sense of it. You have writers trying to stir up controversy and some of them didn’t like me. I don’t know why—I always made myself available to reporters. I was a reporter’s dream. I always had something to say and always had an opinion. That made me “controversial” because athletes were not outspoken in those days.

When was the first time you sensed that your relationship with the media might be problematic?

There was a writer in Miami named John Crittenden. During my senior year, he asked me what happened when I was out there and heard the crowd screaming for me to shoot the ball. I admitted that I heard them, and said, “As long as one of my teammates isn’t open, I’m going to look to score. It has nothing to do with them yelling, it’s just the nature of how I play the game.” The next day the headline is something like “Rick Barry: I Hear the Crowd Yell Shoot, So I Shoot.” It was unbelievable. Holy smokes, this guy took what I said out of context and used it to create the story he wanted to create. I realized right there that I had to be on my toes.

One source of tremendous distress was how his personal life was portrayed. Perhaps the most hurtful story was published in Sports Illustrated in December of 1991. Entitled "Daddy Dearest," it painted Rick as a disinterested, self-absorbed father and husband. He split up with his wife, Pamela, in 1979, and both emerged from the relationship embittered. Their four sons—Scooter, Jon, Brent and Drew—all dealt with the situation differently. But according to SI writer Bruce Newman, the scars of the divorce ran very deep.

Talk about the SI story.

That was such a travesty and did such a disservice to my family. It was the most despicable thing anyone’s ever written about me.

How did you react?

I asked the writer how he could possibly justify writing what he did. His response was that he only wrote what he heard. Baloney. I asked him if he ever asked my kids, “How do you feel about your father today?” He hadn’t. I said if you’d bothered to ask that question, you would not have written this article. I asked him if he was married and had children. He wasn’t married. I told him when he got older and had kids, he should re-read this article and then he will realize what he had done to my kids, my family and me. I told him he should be ashamed of himself.

So were you completely blindsided?

Absolutely. He said he wanted to write about the success my sons had, all four with Division-I scholarships. I thought that would be terrific—a story about my kids for a change, something that would give them recognition for what they’d accomplished. I joked that with my basketball bloodlines and their grandfather’s on their mom’s side, if they were racehorses, they would be worth millions of dollars. He used that comment in a negative way. Of course, I knew I was in trouble the instant I read the “Daddy Dearest” headline. My son, Drew, called me immediately and said he couldn’t believe what this guy wrote. People who knew us told me they couldn’t believe the story. It was as if Sports Illustrated had become the National Enquirer. Hey, you live and learn. To this day I refuse to do anything for a Sports Illustrated story.

Did that piece end up hurting you in the long run?

Yes it did. It helped to propagate this myth about me being an ogre. It damaged my credibility as a person and made it even more difficult for me to become an NBA coach. People are inclined to believe stories like that rather than getting to know me as a person, because they’ve gotten used to me as a media dartboard.

Now that you're on the other side of fence as it were, what are your feelings about sports reporting?

You are known as a journalist who leans toward the players. Has that caused you problems among your peers?